2006-05-09 - 4:26 p.m.

Guess what? I finally did something worth mentioning!!! And what a doozy it is....I'm kidding, This adventure is not quite a doozy (not really sure what situation would qualify as one) but it¡¯s still worth telling, even if it is only to warm people to never, ever go to a few particular places in China and try to eat the food. So here it goes-
For the May Holiday in China (which is a week-long Labor Day event that I have written about before- people must work on the weekends to make up for the work days that the government has so graciously given them off, remember?) I traveled across a province called Fujian. I wasn¡¯t the only human in the travel mood, as is generally the case during most holidays all over the world, especially China. It¡¯s a week of guaranteed chaos involving every mode of transport in this great nation-and we experienced each and every one of them, thank you very much. We witnessed mass exodus and/or enterous (is that a word?) to and from every city we encountered. In short, it was a nightmare. Since I am so easily confused AND amused, however, by the end of the trip I downgraded it to one of those dreams where you wake up laughing but you¡¯ve got a vague, faraway feeling that you were only laughing to keep from crying. In the words of my twin sister once again however- I signed up for this. So I hopped into a cab last Sunday morning (transport #1), and was off.
Our first stop was the airport, where Moi, Tanya ( teachers I work with) and I boarded a flight (transport #2) to a city that lies south of Shanghai, very near Taiwan, called Xiamen. Google Xiamen. You will see beaches. Most of the pictures are not actually of Xiamen beaches. More on that later. My friends and I originally planned on going to Thailand, but there were no tickets available, so we were looking for a beach. Even a Chinese one. After reading about Xiamen and the surrounding area in our trusty Lonely Planet guide, we thought we¡¯d give it a go. We stayed on a little island called Gulong Yu. It was actually very quaint, and had interesting architecture and scenery. Do you hear me? Yes, you read that correctly. I commented on the architecture of somewhere. Am I getting old? Is this the age when you actually start looking at buildings for extended periods of time while on ¡°vacation¡¯? Someone fill me in. I attribute my keen architect¡¯s eye to the fact that this was THE most boring place I ever been in my life and I had nothing else to do but scrutinize every building on the island. We walked around for hours and hours (transport #3), and found very little to do, other than ride this little lift (transport #4)

Actually, I did visit a milking farm in pre-school or maybe kindergarten, but I actually felt some emotion there- I just about fainted with excitement (as I was known to do at age 4) when it was my turn to milk a cow, so Xiamen wins on the boredom tip. I think I would have fallen in love with Gulong Yu, though, if it wasn¡¯t for all of the people and all of the TRASH.Take away those two variables, and I would petition to move to this little island.

(The Dutch invaded and took over the island at one point- I think. The Chinese reclaimed the island. Then they built this momument. Look at that gun!)

It¡¯s charming, really. But when we got close to the water, it was disgusting. It¡¯s so gross they have to chain birds to get them to stay there.
The water was murky and filled with trash and one brave soul

pretending he was at a real beach. Instead of seashells washing up on shore, Gulong Yu has any random family of four¡¯s McDonald¡¯s refuse tickling the shores. The saddest thing is that we watched said family throw their garbage right into the water. Yay! Let¡¯s teach small children earth-threatening habits before they even learn to walk.
Living in Shanghai means that we can enjoy Western food at just about any time day or night. I didn't realize how spoiled I was until I ventured out of my Shanghai Safety Bubble. In this seaside ¡°resort town¡±, seafood and meat was just about all we could find to eat, and I can now say in Mandarin, without the slightest hint of hesitation or embarrassment- ¡°I don't eat meat or seafood.¡± I was so proud. I thought I might starve myself for fun because I was quite enjoying traipsing about the island, telling anyone who would listen about my dietary concerns, but my tummy was rumbling too much. I eventually found a place that sold crackers. Moi eats everything, and Tanya eats seafood, but even they couldn¡¯t find food that didn¡¯t smell, look like, or taste like it had been recently caught at the local sewer, which, by the looks of it, was in fact the water at the beach.. We all ate lots of crackers.
We were so bored that we sat in this coffes shop all day long.

My creative juices, along with cheap Chinese wine, were flowing freely, so I invented a game called ¡°Yall sit in the cafe with a camera and I will run by really fast and then jump- and yall try to take my picture mid-leap¡±. Yes, folks, China can be dangerously boring. I just might officially qualify as an idiot. (Never mind that I try to capture myself in a picture mid-leap no matter what city I am in)Had I been a tiny bit more drunk, I would have made medals for us to wear out of all the garbage on the island. I got 3rd place
Tanya placed 2nd

And Moi looks just like a bird flying in the sky, so she got 1st place.

If it wasn¡¯t for all the trash, and the stinky water, and the bad food, and the hordes of people, and this scary black tube

coming out of the sand and heading straight back into the water offering no hint whatsoever as to what contents it is carrying into the ocean, Xiamen and Gulong Yu would have been okay. The kids on top of the tube certainly made the best of it. So after one dreadfully long, but thankfully wine-filled day, we headed to the train station to find clearer water and fewer people.
We wanted to go to WuYi Shan, a supposedly beautiful national forest about 14 hours away by train. There were no tickets. We thought about taking a flight to the forest, so we stumbled through a mall with our ridiculously huge backpacks searching for signs of some sort of travel agent office. We flipped through a phrase book and figured out how to say ¡°travel agent¡± and kept repeating it out loud to any passersby, in hopes that someone would stop and feel sorry for the stupid foreigners and direct us to a travel agent. A security guard took the bait and began talking on his walkie-talkie and motioning for us to follow him. Like obedient little schoolchildren on their way to the playground, we followed the man. Down in an elevator, out the back door, and into the back alley. All the while he¡¯s jabbering away at us in Chinese. My Chinese must have improved, because, low and behold, I understood some of the words coming out of his mouth. We still did not understand if he was leading us to slaughter, but I did understand that he wanted to know where we were from. My fears were unfounded. He directed us right to a travel agent who worked at a neighboring hotel.
We trudged in with our honkin¡¯ huge backpacks and were greeted by a very happy older lady who was quite eager to listen to our feeble attempt at speaking Chinese and requesting a plane ticket. She nodded and smiled during our entire interaction, and then- Aha! I understood! She told us to wait a moment while she called someone. A man appeared out of a back office, and she motioned towards him and smiled at us. So we began our labored request all over again. When we finished (it took three of us to speak one complete sentence), the man nodded. Sweet Sweet Comprehension! As he clicked away on his computer, the sweet lady flashed us not one, but TWO thumbs up accompanied by a smile reserved only for the proudest of parents. I wish every human was that nice. No sense in celebrating yet, however. We couldn¡¯t get a plane ticket either. So we sat down and studied our guidebook. We read that Quanzhou, a short 2 hour bus ride ( that¡¯s mode of transport #5) had a ¡°reasonably scenic¡± mountainous area. We brought a tent. There were reasonable scenes to see.(?) Hopefully there was no trash. We went to the bus station, and secured 3 tickets to Quanzhou. Off we went. We spent 30 minutes in this town before we headed to a train station. It was seven kinds of depressing, to say the least. Squat, grey, depressing buildings, millions of people and even more cars filled up street after street. Look down any street, that¡¯s all there was. The guidebook said there was an impressive temple somewhere in the city, but we were all moments away from uncontrollable bouts of crying, so we headed to the train station, and this time, scored tickets (transport #6) to Wu Yi Shan. Several, several hours later, we were in Wu Yi Shan. This, time though, the guide book was correct. It truly was scenic and beautiful and everything else Lonely Planet promises. The best part was that the water was crystal clear, and there were very few people there. JACKPOT!!!! My next entry will be filled with detailed descriptions of all the various modes of transport that we used in WuYi Shan. You won¡¯t be disappointed.

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